Copyright © 2005, by Charles L. Collins

Intersection of Racism and Psychology
In American History: Law, Culture, and Civil Disobedience
Instructor: Everett Crenshaw (Ph.D. Johns Hopkins University, 1971)
SOSC 27008/HIST

Lecture 941

Setting morality aside for the moment, there is little doubt that racism has a destructive pathology. There is ample evidence that in some segments of the population this same pathology can lead to sociopathy, such as brutality, rape and murder. Without taking too much liberty, Professor Crenshaw surmises that racists are, by definition, insane. “This applies to the white-hooded Klansman as well as the black-bowtie’d Fara-klansmen.” The professor proclaims in his compelling and often controversial style. “Forming judgments based on skin color is not simply the providence of the ignorant, it is purview of the dysfunctional. Notice, I did not say unnatural. Mankind can do plenty of insane things and still avoid the gentle grasp of the straight-jacket. It seems that this disease is as natural as sweating in August.”

Perryville Ky. October 9, 1862- In a startling display of pusillanimous mettle, the heretofore unheard of Freedom Fighting Fifth, the 5th Colored Infantry of the Ohio Volunteers took to the battle lines with vigor and a spirit of Devine Providence. Eye-witnesses expressed surprise at how the colored men fought and died, while officers confessed that the Grenadiers at the rear, stationed to shoot deserters, would have been better served fighting along side these brave men. More than eighty percent of the brigade met the cannons, guns and steel of the Slave State Rebels and died in the initial charge. Yet the fierce rush was enough to stall the enemy momentum and give the regular army time to position at the flanks and cut off the advance.

More than a few witnesses thought enough of this unusual fact to report it to this correspondent and other journalists: that the Freedom Fighting Fifth was not only efficient and relentless in their charge -- waylaying the men who would have them return to a life of bitter bondage – but they looked mighty good doing it! Striking blue uniforms and sparkling gold braid draped bodies hardened by farm work and subsistence brought north by the great migration. This publication questioned the army on just why the colored troop seemed better equipped than their white counter-parts. The answer was curious and referred to the quartermaster at a small outpost in West-Central Ohio. In light of the crisis facing this great Nation, it seemed a small matter. But still, the questions have been raised that while some Union fighting men were in rags, for Negroes to have such refined haberdashery could have an adverse effect on moral.

Filed on this day—H.R. Sanders for The West Union Advocate

"When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind."

- Frederick Douglass

“Guess I was just born too young. Maybe we all was.”

-Snopes

Prologue

Jerzy Stempowski tried to find a place in the passenger seats that sped beneath the overpass. It was a futile exercise in the metaphysical. He was stuck there, wearing a government sanctioned bogus FBI badge on his belt and listening to other peace officers - peace officers, right. Stuck there at the top of a seldom used exit on a busy north-south corridor – no services, barely a sign to mark the miles, counting backwards, eighty-one miles left of Tennessee. And, most oppressive of all, stuck with the job inside the dilapidated strip of shops across the road.

Another exercise: the late Bill Kradich performed one of his famous radio rants just for him; “I’ll do it for you, Stemp, for old time sake.” That special monologue he would deliver, setting his audience for a major case, ran rampant in the runaway brain of one of the newest – and almost immediately most senior – agents of The National Agency for Law Enforcement.

Radio (as imagined by Stemp):

It gave new meaning to God-forsaken. It was a hole cut into the dingy Tennessee backwoods that would have remained the same since the natives ignored it on the way to a happier hunting ground. If not for being in the path of point a and b, if not for being a straight mile in one of Ike’s brainchildren, the interstate highway system, you would never know it existed. Did you know that for every five miles of that four lane vascular system, Eisenhower mandated that there be one straight mile? It’s true. Just so that planes could land in an emergency. True fact from your humble host. But coming out of the Smokey-blue-ridged-who-the-fuck-knows hills was this place, Exit 8. (Stemp removed any language restriction from his mental radio, a gift for the fallen air personality) And someone had the bright idea that this drive-by was going to be a destination, a reason for getting off the highway and getting gas, a Moonpie and a Coke. But it didn’t happen. Four gas stations came and went before even the Asians gave up on the enterprise. But the last one, we’ll call him Mr. Park, he had a little more moxy than most and talked the bank into lending him a little seed money so he could add to the crossroad. So he put up a tiny strip mall, the land cost him a whole dollar and he even got a tax break! So the ingenious little slant-eye built a four unit “L" shape that was the first thing a traveler saw when he made it to the top of the ramp. For awhile the anchor shop did pretty well, had a little family restaurant in there and truckers gave it a fairly good CB rep. Then one guy died eating backed rat. The place was robbed a few times and the county pulled its service stop designation. The other shops never did fair well, except for one: VIP Spa. Now there was a business. Park knew where to get the perfect combination of exotic hostesses and willing locals to keep the place staffed twenty-four-seven. The Spa consisted of a tacky Korean fountain in the middle of the waiting room, and the heat turned up to 75. That was about it. The rest of the business involved room after room of what they called ‘prepping tables’. That’s where Park would make his twenty dollars a visit and 150 dollars a month membership fee. It was in those changing rooms where the tired traveler and occasional wanderer from a nearby town would experience the true meaning of relaxation. Hand jobs with sweet smelling oils were the specialty. For a good tipper, one of the girls might help the process along by heating the oil with her tongue, or allowing the customer to return the favor with a little ass massage, of course she would have to give her student a place to store the inevitable hard-on while he was learning the finer points gluteus-maximus manipulation. It was a sweet deal and the county looked the other way because half the men were members. Everything was going great guns. Park was getting rich and cared little that his strip mall was nothing more than a parking lot for the little corner business. I guess it was only a matter of time before a couple of bodies turned up in one of the rooms. And with all the available fodder for this little radio show about the oldest crime, we would ignore the passing of one moderately pretty Tennessee working girl and her john. Wouldn’t even make a blip on my radar when I was alive and still entertaining the nation. (Stemp let a sad smile creep across his face). But this little scene of blood and debauchery was more than just a whorehouse killing. It was the beginnings of a national disgrace.

In the multi-layers that exist perfectly in imagination, there was a classic blues riff accompanying the ethereal rap; a sort of du-dunt-dadunt-da-dunt that staggered up the progression of cords and dropped the listener back to where he began with a crash of drum and artful stand-up bass. It was the same familiar audio bedding that comforted him at the Checkerboard, along with a smooth scotch and handing an arrogant – but no less fish-like – player a shellacking on the chess table.

Stemp let that last sentence stand. He was not sure where his specter of a radio show got the hook, as he learned to call it. It just seemed right, given their history before Bill “Crash” Kradich’s untimely death a year before, and remembering what he saw in that back room of the VIP Spa.

The self-induced haunting was over in an instant. Stemp looked down at the cigarette butts, chips of glass and determined weeds at his feet; his inner vision honoring the severely flawed man who almost single-handedly set him on a new course. The 54-year-old investigator had been content to solve a few urban slaughters and collect a check from the city of Chicago until such time that it was no longer interesting or they forced him out. Then that damn Radio Murders went on the air. A bony elbow bounced off his equally boney hip; a self-nudging motion that started shortly after he joined The National. It reminded him that he had to eat, something that, more than once during the course of his incredibly busy and mentally stimulating days, he had totally forgotten. Jerzy Stempowski was never one to hang onto anything he could not use directly in his job; not excess weight, not a constant companion, not even his partner of more than ten years. He held onto facts; obscure, even trivial bits of information that were of no use to anyone, until a murder or a conspiracy hinged on the ready access to such detail. He managed to hang on to the tuffs of graying blond hair that remained Hitlerjugend short on the sides and slightly curled on his crown.

Remarkably enough, he managed to hang on to dinner. The prospect of a sudden release of the undercooked chicken and greasy fries prompted the quiet exit from the scene to this contemplative post – getting a macro of the crime, he told the TBI inspector – near the edge of the exit ramp. The tiny room had become an apiary for all manner of buzzing crime specialists and men with body builder physiques or beer-feed middles under beige uniforms. Several Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents in polo shirts and jeans, whispered like a golf foursome waiting for their turn at the 1st Tee.

The sole federal agent, odd in his light blue oxford and dark gray suit, no tie, assumed the smell of the place was more the norm than the effect of the ghastly mess. Women - some young, some whose ages Stemp could not begin to guess, some Asian and some white - all gathered on dusty sofas and vinyl chairs around the fountain. The heat was mercifully turned down, but the place was not air-conditioned and upon arrival he felt as though he was pulled to within inches of every crevice on every willing partner in the place. Even the fabric that covered the doorways spewed gutter-sex and that unique trucker diesel-fueled body odor that made the investigator pull his head back in a useless defensive motion. Then he saw the reason he was summoned, part of the reason anyway.

In twenty-six years as a Chicago policeman, ten in patrol and sixteen doing follow-up investigations, Jerzy Stempowski had seen many gruesome conditions in which violence left a place. But as the mental snapshots corresponded with the flash from half a dozen digital cameras registered in his analytical left-brain, the right hemisphere rebelled, raged against the images. He fell into a kind of vertigo that swirled around the interior walls and settled uneasy in the pit of his stomach.

Stemp had to step away.

Here he stood, wondering what kind of desperation drew men to this boomerang of a wasted structure. The sounds of the late-night traffic punctuated with Doppler precision the very nothingness of the place. Yet there they were, beneath the white, backlit panels of the VIP Spa. Where young women landed after perilous escapes from hard-tack farming in the Chinese frontier, just to stroke to climax endless grunting beasts. The darkness had form, and the air gave no relief from the atmosphere. It occurred to him that the undercurrent of death was pervasive in that corner suite, even before the outrageous crime. He looked into the eyes of one local woman, refusing to serve burgers or wear a blue vest and straighten clothing rounds, she opted for what they considered professional work; propping up the façade of supporting good health with a laying on of hands. That was actually what one of the women said through a chaos of kernel shaped teeth the color of dead grass. She believed that the VIP Spa was an adjunct to the local clinic: “Git chor stitches, antibiotics and come over here and let Aileen smooth the hurtin’ away,” she said without a hint of delusion. The Asian girls knew what they were doing, and learned just enough English to keep up the front. They were the real draw, most much younger than the locals, and in the limited Weltanschauung of the horny transients, all of them were pretty.

This was Jerzy Stempowski’s first case as an agent of The National. The first time he pulled his own name for a field assignment. It was nothing he could put his finger on, but there was a nagging little doubt about the mundane nature of the crime. The fact that one of the victims was part of the family, a First Responder who agreed to keep the facts of certain events to himself, made it a case that attracted the DNI’s attention. The Director of National Intelligence was very careful when it came to this select group of men and women; careful and protective. The fact that the victim was, at the time of his death, a fire chief in a small town more than two hundred miles away also peaked Stemp’s interest.

And then there was the file: a small document held in the intelligence archives, and only opened because of the unprecedented access afforded the agencies under the direct control of the DNI. Examined by a dozen analysts, it appeared insignificant. But the documented activities in Staggars Ford, Ohio, combined with the murder of its fire chief, were enough for the perpetually curious Acting Assistant Regional Director. It was enough for a plane ticket to Knoxville and forty-minute drive to the VIP Spa.

Stemp watched the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation inspector cross the deserted road and walk toward him. He was wiping his brow and neck with a white towel. One of the perks of membership, Stemp guessed. When he was close enough to make eye contact, Thelonius Monk Beau simply shook his head and mumbled in perfectly rounded Tennessee tones, “Whot a me’ass.”

Part One - Promised Land
A Sunday Drive

“Nobody knew how old Ol’ Snopes was when he was living, let alone guessing now that he’s dead.”

There are certain things one cannot do while in pain, Detective Freddy Blakely reminded himself; pretending to be interested in a relative’s conversation was near the top of the list. But because his nephew was in law enforcement - small town and in many ways more interesting than big city investigations – he managed to suppress his exploding L1 and S1. And the young man’s dialect was the type that foretold a punch line, or any twist or turn in an otherwise mundane tale. It wasn’t quite southern. He lived in a part of the country where the lines were blurred between antebellum and western expansion. The nearest metropolis was Dayton, Ohio, not exactly a hotbed for sophistication in the mind of the Chicago investigator. “So how long do you think he’s been dead?” Freddy was delighted with his nephew’s choice of profession. Raised by his sister and Freddy’s mom, Eric Blakely looked to his uncle as the only father figure; Freddy, being the father of three girls, cherished the relationship.

“You should see him, Fred. Skin looked like carbon paper. I swear I thought I was at an archeological dig, not a construction site for the golf course expansion.” The younger Blakely was the only one to use the shortened version of his uncle’s name. In the minds of both men, it meant dad.

“You guys have any forensics out there in the boonies?”

“It’s not as bad as you think. The county helps out on major crime. Plus Ohio has a pretty good BCI.”

“Hey, it’s a job.” Freddy was happy his nephew was able to get out of Cleveland. “You say this was one of the oldest residents in the area?”

“You heard the old standing order, ‘don’t let the sun go down on no niggers in Staggars Ford.’ Old Chief Blutte Mackey would close his roll-call with that.”

“And there you are, serving and protecting folks who not that long ago would have run you out on a rail.” The detective’s painful wince was audible.

“That was a long tine ago, Fred. Now we got about five percent Black citizens and, then there’s me.”

“Right, chief on an eight man force.” Freddy tried not to think about the one moment when Staggars Ford made the headlines. It was one of those cases that straddled the line between social comment and true crime. But in 1958, few seemed to care about the victims and more about the character of a young nation dealing with seemingly indomitable demons. “So I guess you like it there, huh Rickey? I mean, you don’t ever feel like you ain’t wanted.”

“I know you have a notion about the area, Uncle Freddy. We’ve talked about the Rence Jackson case more than once. Buy the place has changed.” Silence on the Chicago end of the phone line convinced Eric that his uncle was not convinced. “Seriously, this is not the same place that swallowed up that family back in the fifties. They haven’t had any major crime to speak of in years, and Ol’ Snopes showing up like this is still more archeology than crime science.”

Freddy opened his seldom-used pull-out writing surface at the top of the three file drawers There, yellowing with age, was the Cincinnati Post Dispatch article on the brutal murder of a man who was traveling with his three children. It happened on the road between Staggars Ford and Dayton. Had the civil rights era began in earnest it would have made front pages in every newspaper in the country. As it was, with the plight of Negros in America in 1958, the names of the victims were not even mentioned until the eighth paragraph. Freddy knew the names, committed to memory before he even thought about becoming a cop. Bobbie, Allen and Charlie. Freddy silently greeted the faded photo of three children, all in fifties Sunday-best and all smiles.

The incident report and the file on Rence Jackson’s homicide were typically vague for the Highway Patrol of the era. The place where the body was found was distant to both Montgomery and Hamilton counties resulting in both sheriffs’ departments to make token efforts, and the event went nearly unnoticed. Freddy tried to fill in the story, if only for his own comfort, by reconstruction the forgotten habits of Clarence Jackson, Rence to all who knew him. A Sunday drive was not a foreign concept to the fifty-seven year old detective; he was about the same age as Allen the middle son. Though the bodies were never found, there was little doubt that Allen and his brother and sister did not grow much older than the day they traveled with their father to visit a cousin in the near-by town. Rence was like that, Freddy imagined, someone who valued family no matter how distant and cultivated the ties while others let the binding dwindle with time. Taking the children out to see his first cousin in Staggars Ford was just like him, fresh from church and still respectful. Freddy didn’t have a good sense of the children. The photo gave them a well behaved, almost angelic look, but most kids did, especially then, in Eisenhower’s America. Bobbie towered over her brothers, holding a pillbox purse, wearing light-colored gloves and expressing more than happiness with her eleven-year-old grin; she seemed ecstatic, thrilled with whatever her circumstance. Charlie was the youngest and in the middle of the shot. There was a knowing confidence in that face, a ready-for-anything set in his mouth and a determination in his eyes. But it was Allen’s face that drew Freddy’s attention; a little mischief and a little danger, darkly handsome even at seven. For no logical reason – perhaps because he had no sons of his own - it was Allen who Freddy missed the most. In spite of the fact that he never knew the children at all, or their ill-fated father, he felt for Allen, believing that perhaps he put up the biggest fight, and suffered the most.

It was all part of the process. Every time Freddy looked at the photo in the article, more was added to the personalities and to the story.

“Fred, there’s something else.” Eric pierced the reunion. “Have you heard from your former partner recently?”

“Som-a-bitch calls me every day, why?” Freddy rolled the work surface back into its hiding place.

“But not today.”

“Not yet. What’s up?” As though on cue, the cell phone blared INXS, The Devil Inside, a gift from Stemp before he left. Freddy had no idea how his departing partner assigned the song to his particular incoming call. It would be hopeless for Freddy to try and remove the feature, even if he wanted to. “Speak of the devil.” The unintentional pun was lost on all. “I’ll see you later.”

“Sooner than you think, Uncle Fred. You better take that call.” Eric Blakely clicked off, Freddy thought, a little abruptly.

He pulled the phone from his jacket pocket and spewed the usual greeting. “What.”

Show-prep

KCI Radio, The Loop

Dani Drabek felt all of the ten pounds she had gained since taking over the Radio Murders. It’s not working; the words repeated in an audio loop that circled her head nearly all the time. She was the boss and the critique was a preemptive strike against the inevitable. As program director, it was her responsibility to find a way to keep the profitable and innovative program on the air, The Radio Murders, even after its host and creator was himself a victim of homocide. On paper she was the most likely replacement. Dani produced the show before, during and after Bill Kradich was shot down in full view of nearly four-hundred witnesses on an unlikely stage at the Millennium Park amphitheatre. But there was something else required to perform a radio show; something that could not be taught and Dani was acutely aware that she did not have it.

3:40 in the afternoon. The show should have some foundation already in place. Dani and Andy, Creepy Andy, were at the small conference table going over newspapers and Web print-outs from all over the world. Even Creepy felt the show sinking into the mundane. “Got a ritual killing in Kingston, Jamaica. Creative uses for goats horns.” Creepy smiled in a way that justified his nickname.

“Please, no more twisted rape cases. I’m sick of the focus always being on how men can fuck up women. It’s humiliating just talking about it.” Dani dropped her chin into the crook of her elbow. I just want to sleep!

“Sorry.” Andy twisted his mouth and silently finished reading the story “You got something better?” he mumbled. “Other than another affiliate bailing on us.” Andy shoved the notice of cancellation across the table with a scrape of his fingertips.

“I got nothing. Better, worse, boring or just plain shit. I got nothing.” Her words muffled by her body and the tabletop, expressed more fatigue than frustration.

“Remember how you used to start these meeting?”

“What’s our only sin…” Dani weakly repeated the opening salvo of what used to be lively discussions. “Being boring.”

“You’re making me want to kill myself you’re so out of it.” Andy dropped the paper to the table.

“I don’t know if I can do this. Crash has been dead a year, I should have something by now, instead I have sixteen hour days and a constant headache.”

“What did you expect? Working a show like this plus programming a major talk station, plus answering to those geniuses in syndication programming! It’s a wonder you haven’t be a subject of The Murders already.” Andy stood. Thin muscles and bones twitched beneath a worn tee shirt as he swung his watch into view. “Maybe there’s something in the mail.” Dani rose from the table and stretched her back. Andy lingered on the pleasant form of her round breasts and powerful arms. “You gained a little weight.” He said, intendeding the misguided sentence as a compliment.

“Go get the mail before I make a show out of your untimely demise.” Dani smiled a little. It was the first time, she thought, in months. Threatening her associate producer with his life somehow made her feel better.

The Radio Murders – or simple The Murders as it was known inside the simple machine that produced the nightly fare – had fallen into that stretch of mediocrity that dulls the sheen and rounds the edges from most talk shows. If the business were truly innovative it would spell the end for the three people who worked to present a new take on homicide: the human tragedy unfolding and completely exposed on radio. Dani was reluctantly drawn into the format by a set of circumstances – some of her own making – that brought the crimes to KCI and host Bill Kradich. It had been a year since Kradich was shot to death while staging an event so outrageous that Dani still could not find a comfortable place in her active mind for the memory. It was billed as Public Justice. In some ways it seemed to live up to expectation, if not those of the principle players, then certainly the layer of government trying desperately to stay a step ahead of enemies, real or imagined. Dani Drabek’s experience with The National Agency for Law Enforcement and the reach we, the people had allowed for the sake of security, had jaded her and turned a skeptical mind into a borderline paranoid. Immediately after Kradich’s death she went on the air on an interim basis. It was a good idea at the time, she thought. Dani had been on the air only briefly before taking the job producing the novice Crash Kradich. That was more than five years previous and she was feeling more middle aged than she looked. At barely five-four, she still maintained the fit appearance of a woman who still kick-boxed in her dinning room for five hours a week. Her large blue eyes still skated freely behind narrow dark frames and her wardrobe still featured more black than any other color. Buy Dani abandoned her boyish hair-cut, letting dark brown streaks hang straight to just below her shoulders and she took to wearing a little more makeup. Somewhere in the course of this strange evolution, as she categorized her climb to unwanted fame, she had lost all interest in sex. The women in her life were too typical, to wrapped up in themselves to maintain any kind of relationship. And as she grew older, physical beauty was less important than intellectual stimulation. This fact alone nearly frightened her into celibacy. Though she had sex with men in her past, the thought of it nearly prompted a violent reaction. I’d rather blow a Schnauzer: another mental slap used to bring her thoughts back on task.

The topic plan was half finished: There was a follow-up on a trailer park homicide that was called in two weeks privious. Guy actually shot his wife while on the phone to me! Dani remembered how disgusted she was at the call, not because of the shooting, but because the guy insisted on keeping the line open while he masturbated. Dani was ready with the kill button, but knew she had to keep him on the line until the Brookville, Fl Police and Hernando County sheriff arrived at the scene. The shooter’s arraignment was scheduled for today. “Guy will be on Florida’s death row before Labor Day,” Dani mused. “Catching the KC-One cocktail in twenty-four months.” She was not sure when she noticed the similarities to the station’s call letters and the elemental symbol for potassium chloride – the last chemical in most lethal injection cocktails. But she had artwork drawn up that exploited the fortunate connection.

KCI (The Radio Murders) and KC1 (Potassium Chloride), The Last Word in Murder!

The campaign had yet to gain approval, but Dani was not giving up. She could see the trend long before most interested people, inside and outside of the glass and steel high-rise at Washington, Wabash and Franklin streets. The Radio Murders was in serious decline, and she was to blame. No one could convince her otherwise.

“This looks interesting.” Andy returned with a white corrugated container with US Postal Service stenciled on the side. He dropped the box on the conference table and held a postage stamp-sized chip between his thumb and index finger. “Someone sent us another dog and pony show.”

“I can’t handle anymore fake snuff films.” Dani got up and snatched the chip. “This is not what we intended when we started all this.”

“Really?” The one word was dropped like a soggy dinner roll. Andy returned to scouring through the bundles of mail.

“What kind of sick minds are out there?” Dani read the note accompanying the chip.

JEEM BEN VEREG.

“What is that, a name? Some kind of drugged-out gibberish?” Dani mumbled.

“Don’t you know by now? Crash used to say he was cursed with a fan base that he wouldn’t want to share the planet with, let alone a common interest.”

“Crash was right.” Dani let a collage of callers run through her internal audio. Not a single person was what she would consider a rational human being. “Let’s look at this.” She stepped to the media station in the corner of the conference room.

“Do I have to?”

“Like I said, I got nothing.” Dani placed the tiny storage device into the corresponding slot. She tapped a few keys and stroked the mouse to bring up two folders. “We got a still and a narr…” Dani choked on the words, and nearly on the coffee that was speeding up from her sour stomach.

“What the fuck is that?” Andy raced to the twenty-inch screen. “I don’t know about you, but that don’t look like no fake to me!” Andy’s mouth remained gapped and his eyes bulged.

Dani plunged her glasses into her bangs, sending wild strands of carefully cropped hair in all directions. She peered into the screen and tried to find seams, overlays, color discrepancies, anything that would giveaway a Photoshop trick or clever doll-play. There was none. The convulsion in her stomach rippled again, this time leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. “I don’t know what to think.” She clicked the mouse and magnified the subject on the bed. It was difficult to look at, and nearly impossible to reconcile. “That’s a real head, a woman, a black woman, but that ain’t her body.”

“Not unless she was born a fat white guy.” Andy moaned from behind closed fingers. “And look at the blood. Jesus, I’m gonna be sick.”

“Relax, Creepy, I’m still not so sure it’s real.” The figure lay on a gurney of blood soaked sheets in some sort of treatment room. There was a cascade of darkened red sheeting from the severed neck, with extra tissue from the fat man serving as a pedestal for the corn-rowed, dower-faced female head. In the middle of his hairy torso was another incision, black with blood; the purpose was unclear. His hand was holding his penis in something of a death-grip. Dani looked closer and recognized that the position was held together with some kind of wire, cutting into the unfortunate man’s fingers and testicles. The small hand-cursor closed on the image and moved to the second subject: a woman, at least from the severed neck down, with the oversized head of – she presumed – the man on the gurney carefully propped onto her shoulders. The wrap-style clinical gown was opened to reveal ample breasts and smooth skin, except for the incision in roughly the same place as the man; the same violet flow oozed from the cut. Dani dropped her glasses back to the bridge of her nose and sat back in the chair. “I can’t find anything that says this is a fake, Andy.”

“No shit! Someone actually slaughtered these people.”

“Pretty sure this is the real deal. The only question is when. You can find some pretty twisted stuff from old crime scenes if you look for them.”

“Dani, we researched all kinds of homicides for the show. I thought I’d seen it all, but this…”

Dani jerked forward and moved the magnified graphic to the floor of the room. A USA Today was positioned at the base of the gurney. She recognized the headline; it was from Monday’s paper. “Whatever this is, it’s not old.” Had Andy torn his eyes away from the computer monitor, he would see the small curve forming in Dani’s lip. A little reprieve from the chopping block, she thought. Opening the other folder on the Secure Digital card, she was thrilled to find an audio file. “Sound to go with the mayhem?”

“Jesus, I hope not.” Andy took a step back, preparing himself for more horror.

Dani double-clicked the file. A program designed to playback digital recordings sprang to life. But it was not screams and chaos. It was a single voice in hissy audio reflections: an old man, an ancient Black man talking to someone he loved very much, in gentle, grandfatherly tones.

So glad you’all came by to see Ol’ Snopes. Don’t get many visitors ‘round these parts. Don’t get many a’tall.

Dani clicked the mouse and stopped the file. “This is tape, from about a hundred year ago?” She said mainly to herself.

“Really/” Andy pulled up a chair.

“No, not really.” She quickly scooped her hair with a backhand, sending it over her shoulder. “But I’ll bet it’s from the sixties, may earlier. Probably talking into an old Philips or Grundig, depending on who’s doing the recording.”

“So Studs Terkel went Charlie Manson on us?”

Dani looked at the producer. Andy’s code-speak was part of his charm, but at the moment, it was more annoying than anything else. “I doubt that the audio track has anything to do with the graphic.”

“Then why pair them?” The two sat, searching one another’s eyes for an answer. There was none; only the new facts that somewhere, two people met a frightening and violent end and that The Radio Murders was, once again, the recipient of the inside track. The reality seemed to dissolve the concerns both shared moments earlier.

“Looks like The Murders doesn’t have to go on life support after all.”

“You want me to call Blakely and see if we can pull some forensics?” The radio show maintained a close relationship with Detective Freddy Blakely and he was usually willing to add a Chicago toughness to an unfolding case. He was especially helpful if the homicide was committed outside his jurisdiction.

“No. I have a better idea.” Dani began formulating the conversation in her head: a call to an old friend who might be willing to help. “Let’s listen to the old dude first. Maybe we can do this on our own.”

A Week’s Pay

Rence Jackson kept looking in the rear view mirror, checking to make sure his youngest son was holding on to the beige box. It was the third passenger in the seat, with plenty of room between the leg-bouncing boys in their long Sunday trousers and jackets. Charlie had lost interest in the bread-box sized unit and was watching the wide stretch of woods pass through the chrome and steel frame of the rear driver-side window. “Don’t let that slide around, now, Charlie.”

“I got it.” The six year old poked the brim his child-sized fedora, imagining himself in the body of Flint McCullough protecting the wagon train from marauding Indians.

“Allen, you keep a hand on it, too. I don’t want anything to happen before we get to talk to cousin Snopes.”

“Why do we have to go all the way to Staggars Ford, Daddy?” The twelve year old girl in the front seat complained. “They don’t want us there.”

“Where did you hear that? Large hands tightened on the smoothly serrated bakelite wheel.

“Kids at school. Said Negros aren’t welcomed in the town.”

“Well that’s nonsense. This is not the old south,”

“Can negros go out west? Like the Bad Lands and Tombstone?” Charlie’s active voice pierced the warm wind rushing in from all the opened windows.

“They don’t want us anywhere.” Allen sulked.

“That’s just not so, and you’all better stop listening to those kids. This is America and we’re Americans. No place can make us stay away, especially if we have family. Now I don’t want any more about this, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.” The three voices responded almost in unison.

“This is important, I didn’t spend a week’s pay for that tape machine for nothing.”

“Cousin Snopes gonna sing for us?” Charlie remembered the little test he did for his father’s new machine. He sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star into the beige, plastic rectangle.

“No, I’m going to ask him some questions, about his life. Cousin Snopes has lived a long time, seen many things change. His parents were slaves, you know.”

“Were you ever a slave daddy?” Charlie asked with the non-judgment of a first-grader.

“No, son. That was a long time ago, before your mom or I were born.”

“Grandmother was a slave.” Allen eased into the conversation.

“No, she wasn’t.” Bobbie threw the admonishment over the ribbed, vinyl seat. “They didn’t have slaves in Kentucky.”

“Actually, they did, Bobbie. But your grandmother was born long after they ended slavery after the Civil War.”

“I knew that.” Allen poked his sister’s shoulder. “She was born in 1897, right daddy?”

‘That’s right. Now just hush awhile. I’m trying to think about what I’m gonna ask cousin Snopes.”

“Is it true he lives in a barber shop? Do we have to get haircuts?” Charlie ignored his father’s request.

“No. Now hush!”

Gale Storm sang, treble-heavy through the chrome grated panel in the elaborate deco dash. A song about a Dark Moon; one made popular the year before. It was not one of Rence Jackson’s favorites. The Reds’ll be on soon, he thought, playin’ Milwaukee. The Hudson Hornet – though nearly two years old, the Jackson family’s first new car – made the climb over the modest hill that led into the Stillwater River Valley. Braves got that young, Negro star, Hank Aaron. Rence puffed a little with pride. Kids will just have to put up with it.

Staggars Ford spread in front of them; equally distributed in small farms and white, clapboard town structures. Even in 1958, the town looked as though time had stopped early in the 19th century.

Largo Key

It took a great deal of effort for Denton Luka to change. To him it was like asking an alligator to fly. He had problems with certain things and the best he could do was keep it to himself. The huge portrait in the waiting area of Cadmus Intel was not helping. He knew that the company founder and president was mulatto. The antiquated term was easier for the Florida native than half black, either way, he could not avoid the label-making. Seeing the resemblance in the distinguished face of Stacy Crenshaw’s father, the late professor of history, just tightens my sphincter. The discomfort was such that the powerful ex-cop from Clearwater Beach could only roam the spacious waiting room in anticipation of seeing his boss.

Stacy Crenshaw caught him glaring at her father’s oil. “Handsome gentleman, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah.” It was not easy, but Luka managed an expression of admiration. “Guess you pay somebody enough and even my ugly mug would look like a museum piece.”

“Doubtful.” Stacy stepped across the carpet, careful not to catch the less responsive heel of her prosthetic in the weave. “Hate to admit it, but I’m glad to see you.” She reached out, offering a hug that Denton accepted with a little too much zeal.

“Glad enough for a late dinner? I’ll get a room.” Denton let his hand drift below the waste of Stacy’s linen and light wool pants.

“I like a man who’s consistent.” She pulled back some, bumping his hand free with a twist of her hips. “I’d rather eat dirt.” The two smiled and held onto hands to conclude the embrace. “What’s the matter, Denny? Don’t want to face another August on the peninsula?” There was a little of the boss and brothers-in-arms in the sarcasm. Stacy had grown to trust the former Clearwater Beach police chief, enough to hire him into her company and give him free reign in the southern region.

“What was it from that movie?” Luka followed her sown the wide hall. “Hurricane is like the wind picking up the ocean so it can walk right across the land.”

“Key Largo. Love that movie.” She unlocked her office door and swung it wide to reveal two window-walls that looked out over the busy enterprise zone of Schaumberg Illinois.

“Only they don’t tell you that every footprint is a new lake.” Luka always loved the view from Stacy’s executive offices. “Remember the beach outside my place, under the Sand Key Bridge? Gone. My place, hell, the whole strip is just one big public works project.” Having taken in as much of the outside as necessary, Luka looked around the office, the sights and smells of success.

“You moved inland when we started working together.” Stacy grabbed the corner of her desk, almost imperceptibly steadying on her strong right leg; her living leg.

“Everybody needs a change of scenery.” He went back to the vista, examining and profiling as many tiny shoppers and workers as he could. Lady in a parked Lexus, guy drives up in a BMW and hops in next to her. Suburban playtime. “Besides, there’s only so much bug-sweeping and spouse-spying you can do before you get a little nuts.”

“Been kinda slow around here, too.” The green file folder was on her desk. Thoughts of just how much she could trust her newest employee jogged through her crowded mind. “There is something that’s a little out of the ordinary.”

“Oh, thank the sweet, floating, furry Jesus.” Luka plopped into the visitor’s chair “Stacy. I don’t mind telling you, the pay is good, great in fact, but I’m going nuts down there.”

“I ever mention my friend Dani?”

“I have an entire wing of the Luka Mental Porn Museum devoted solely to you two being friendly.”

“You’re a pig, Denton.”

“I know,” He scanned Stacy’s loosely draped right pant leg, knowing that beneath was a miracle of medical engineering. “What about her? She took over for that Kradich guy after he caught a couple of rounds.”

“Ever listen?”

“On the radio? She sucks. At least Kradich made murder fun again.”

“She’s trying. If not for a load of violence that got dumped on all of us there wouldn’t be any Radio Murders in the first place.” The athletic brunette eased into her chair and crossed her legs. Sitting, she purposefully examined Denton, narrowing her hazel-gray eyes and waiting for the next perverted comment. The wait was not long.

“So, you screwing her again, if that’s the correct term, or is this the Chinese year of the cock.” A wide grin wiped across the unshaven face.

Stacy noticed that Denton Luka had dropped a few pounds, taking advantage of the free executive club membership he insisted upon when she offered him a job. “Haven’t decided yet,” she teased. “But Dani and I aren’t a couple, so I guess you’ll just have to rely on your imaginary peep show.”

“Works for me.”

“All right. Playtime’s over.” Stacy pulled forward and opened the folder. “But I think you’ll like this almost as much.” The glossy eight-by-ten was printed from an e-mail received earlier in the evening.

“Whoa! There some nastiness going on here.” Luka took the photo and moved it close to his face. The examination took all of three minutes.

“What can you tell me?” Stacy asked.

“Dani get this? Someone send it in for their fifteen minutes of fame?”

“She received it in the mail. In digital form.”

“Whatever that means.” The investigator angled the photo in several positions. “Good resolution. I can see the newspaper, contemporary, we know that.” Stacy pushed a magnifying glass toward the opposite edge of her desk. Luka picked it up and scanned one corner of the photo. “Whoever took this did this. Or was an accomplice. It’s no crime scene photo.”

“Agreed.”

“Wait a minute…” He sat back and thought for a minute, rubbing his upper lip with the web of his thumb. “I think I know where this is.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, really. Sometimes being a perv is good for business. Since you hired me I visited every stroke joint from here to Naples.”

“Research?”

“You’ve seen my expense sheet. Of course it’s research.” A half smile folded Luka’s thin lips. “This sigh here, the broken English…”

Stacy peered into the glass. “Message for fifteen minute only.” She dropped back and grinned at Luka. “Must have been a great disappointment, thinking one thing and only getting your voice mail instead.”

“Believe me, those girls did more rubbing than reading.” He went back to the whole shot. “This had to take some time, and I can’t imagine either DOA sitting still for it.”

“You really know where this is?”

“The VIP Spa, somewhere in the freeway frontier of I-75, I think. Yeah, it must be. 95 don’t hit Tennessee, and this place is definitely in Tennessee.” Denton waited. “What else?”

“What else?”

“What else came with the photo? Don’t tell me your little girlfriend just gets bloody shots of mayhem on a regular basis.”

“I’m not sure, but you’re right, I did get the feeling that something else came in the package.”

“Well, if it was the guy’s Johnson, count me out. I’ll take my chances on Hurricane Leroy or whatever the fuck is heading up the coast.”

“Tell you what. Dani will be off the air in another hour. Why don’t we have that dinner and then drop in on the Radio Murders.”

“Cool! Room service?” Denton leapt to his feet.

“If you don’t calm down it’ll be a QP with chee.” Stacy tapped her right heel twice and pulled to her feet.

“You’ve gotten real good at that. Almost forgot…”

“Don’t go soft on me now, Denny. Let me fill in the blanks, all gimped up?”

“Naw, I wasn’t gonna say anything that cruel, I was just gonna call you Eileen.”

Stacy grabbed Denton by the arm and the two matched steps, and amputee epithets, as they headed out of the office.

Alley and Bumbo

I can’t think of a time when I had such a nice family come to sit with Ol’ Snopes. All I gets around here is the folks from the shop and sometimes a few others want me to fix something. Prutty good with these old hands. Mighty old, I suppose, but still bends where I needs ‘em, still know my way around a vice and hammer (laugh) nothing you can’t fix with a good vice and a hammer. Now Clarence, you get a beautiful family, did I mention that? A beautiful family. Look at that good hair on the boy, remind me of my momma, let’s see, that’d be your aunt Sarah. I don’t know where she got that long, straight hair. Never did talk about that much. But that’s what you axed about, ain’t it. ‘Bout my momma and daddy come cross the river. They must done crossed in the fifties, near as I can recon.

Before the war for Emancipation. Come up from Ripley and wandered around for a while like Jews in the wilderness. (laugh, cough) what’s that? (Mumbling inaudible) I’s fine, just fine. Don’t worry about Ol’ Snopes, I done seen enough to kill most men, guess the god Lord needs me around here in Staggars Ford a little while longer. I tell you what. I don’t know what you expecting to hear, Clarence. What you want me to say into your fancy machine. But I got a notion you ain’t gonna like what I’m gonna tell you. You like all the young people today, taking about voting rights and civil rights and stepping up to the white man’s table and catching up for all them years of being denied. It ain’t like that, son, not really. The Lord has a way. (pause) Here, what’s the boy’s name? Charlie?

Here, Charlie. You take this mason jar. Now I got something for you, You like cat’s eyes? Yeah, I thought you might. I got pile of ‘em right here, the alley’s is mine, but you can borrow them. Now put them in the jar, ‘bout the same amount and here…add these biguns. These called bumbos. Now I wants you to shake up that jar. Shake it up real good. Don’t worry, Clarence, that old jar as tough as ol’ Snopes. Been around forever. See, Charlie, see how the bumbos is at the top and my little alleys done got buried? That’s the way it is, Clarence. Even when Negros gets free and outta the South, they’s still treated like Simon the leper. Momma and daddy know’d this, Clarence! They know’d it and all your kin know’d it, too. But being shuned in Ohio still better than the lash in Kentucky or worse, down Alabama, Mississippi or Loos’anna. Look at that boy. That Charlie’s one smart boy. He poured out them marbles, two at a time. What you got there, boy? That’s right, don’t matter which ones on top, they still comes out one big one and one little one. Two by two, just like the animals on the Arc. And that’s the way things happen ‘round here. It don’t matter who’s on top, we’s all going out together, like equals, side by side. That’s the plan and I’m purt sure there’s no way ‘round it.

Together Again

“So, they saddle you with a pleb yet?” Stemp was smiling from ear to ear. He was clearly happy to see his old partner.

“Yeah, a little blond chick, no less. I keep her busy with trial prep and phone work.” Freddy dove into the gazpacho like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. “Nobody makes this stuff like Ernie.” He looked around to the sparse seating and few customers.

“Must be nice to see a pretty face sitting behind the computer, instead of my switchblade mug giving you shit.” Stemp sipped his Tesoro Paradiso Anejo and pursed his lips.

“Who said she was pretty? And she sure as hell ain’t sharing our old round. I got her set up down in patrol.” Another loud sip. “Bosses don’t like it, but she’s fine with it.”

“For now.”

“Now is all we got, brother. So how you doing with the Secret Police?”